Jun 22 Big Oil partners up to proclaim support for national carbon tax in the U.S.

BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and several large international companies have formed a new coalition to make the case for a carbon tax in the US.

The Climate Leadership Council has taken out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal in support of a "gradually rising and revenue-neutral" carbon tax starting at US$40/tonne, with funds redistributed back to all Americans, particularly low-income families.

Private backers of the plan include billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and physicist Steven Hawking.

The group says its plan "would achieve significantly greater emissions reductions than all current and prior climate regulations, while helping America's businesses and workers get ahead ... the bottom 70% of Americans would be financially better off."

The chances of a Republican controlled House and Senate passing a national carbon tax is somewhere between slim and none.

California introduced a cap-and-trade carbon plan several years (integrated with Quebec and now Ontario), but that plan has generated only a fraction of the revenues projected.

States such Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island and Oregon claim to be inspired by British Columbia's "progressive" carbon tax, but have so far not been able to pass any such legislation through their respective governments. Even the most left-leaning jurisdictions such as Washington State, have so far failed to rally voters around the idea of tax and redistribution.